Month: September 2022

ENGULFMENT REMAINS. “For all dsDNA viruses of eukaryotes, we can detect clear ancestry among viruses (and in some cases, plasmids) of bacteria, an observation that is compatible with the key role of the (proto)mitochondrial endosymbiont (and possibly other bacterial symbionts) in the evolution of eukaryotes.” http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/nyas.12728/full View in LinkedIn

WORK STILL TO DO. “Some of the most exciting ideas on viral evolution, such as the fourth-domain hypothesis, do not survive phylogenomic scrutiny. However, the emerging picture of virus evolution is hardly less remarkable.” http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/nyas.12728/full View in LinkedIn

SO ENDS this section on the impact of the discovery of the giant viruses, the bridge between more streamlined and outsourced, supposedly simpler, viruses that many consider, at best, to be in twilight life states, and truly living cells. Our human-centric view of the natural world is veering towards a tipping point of a revision. We are a tiny minority of the life forms on the planet. View in LinkedIn

THE NEXT SECTION focuses on reductionism versus wholism, how they arose, and the consequences of each. View in LinkedIn

SILO SCIENCE. “The modern history of biological and medical sciences can be summarized in three words: ever-increasing specialization.” https://lnkd.in/ewVanRj View in LinkedIn

TOWERS OF BABEL. “As biologists have methodically surveyed the characteristics of living systems at the multiple scales of molecular, cellular, organismal, and ecological organization, seminal discoveries and technical advances have spawned entirely new fields of research that quickly develop their own themes, vocabularies, and research culture.” https://bmcsystbiol.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/1752-0509-8-S2-S1 View in LinkedIn

CONSEQUENCES OF INFORMATION OVERLOAD. “Whether intended or not, this specialization usually involves reducing the scope of the problem to focus research and ease the burden of tracking too many variables and concepts. This reductionist approach is widespread to all sciences and no biologist or other biomedical scientist can claim deep knowledge of the state-of-the-art in more than a few of the hundreds subfields of biology.” https://bmcsystbiol.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/1752-0509-8-S2-S1 View in LinkedIn

COMMON THREADS. “Running counter to this natural balkanization are the handful of organizing principles that span across all of biology such as natural selection and the central dogma of molecular biology. Why would anyone look for an alternative to reductionist biology after one hundred fifty years of unrelenting success?” https://bmcsystbiol.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/1752-0509-8-S2-S1 View in LinkedIn

The urban farms greening Paris https://www.cnn.com/style/article/urban-farms-in-paris/index.html View in LinkedIn

COMMON THREADS. “Running counter to this natural balkanization are the handful of organizing principles that span across all of biology such as natural selection and the central dogma of molecular biology. Why would anyone look for an alternative to reductionist biology after one hundred fifty years of unrelenting success?” https://bmcsystbiol.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/1752-0509-8-S2-S1 View in LinkedIn